The first reaction to the news back in July 2018 that James Gunn had been fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was a howl of despair. After all, the first two Guardians movies had his fingerprints all over them, with him using the heroes to tell what seemed to be pretty personal stories.
But while I might have thought it was a bad decision, it seemed like we should at least start thinking about who could fill Gunn’s boots. Taika Waititi was the frontrunner before ruling himself out, followed by some talk of Anchorman director Adam McKay steppig into the role. We then heard that Marvel Studios was looking for a woman to take the job.
But now it seems that that might have all been hearsay, as it’s been confirmed that Gunn is back and THR’s reporting that Disney and Marvel Studios never seriously considered anybody else other than him for the job.
“In the weeks after firing Gunn, there was speculation around town about who could replace the filmmaker, with agents lining up clients but by mid-fall, any perceived search seemed to have petered out, with many thinking that the project was on the back burner. What almost no one knew was that Marvel and Disney had never undertaken a search and had gone back to Gunn and made a deal…in secret, according to insiders.”
So, basically all of the column inches, angry internet discussion and fierce Bautista-based fury might have all been for nothing. Jeez, way to play things close to your chest Disney. Though this all does make Gunn’s choosing to direct Warner Bros’ The Suicide Squad a bit strange – you would think if he really had been secretly rehired then he wouldn’t sign up to make a movie for Marvel Studios’ biggest competitor, right?
My working theory is that all this was a result of the Disney/Fox merger, which was far from being finalized in July 2018. With billions of dollars and some of the most valuable IP in the world up for sale, the last thing Disney wanted was any kind of negative publicity that might give regulators cold feet. But now that that deal’s signed, sealed and (practically) delivered, they presumably figured they could bring him back in secret for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and just announce it later.